MMS Blog

Registration is now open for Modern Machine Shop’s 2019 Top Shops Conference, which takes place September 9-11 in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the Duke Energy Convention Center. “Instead of focusing on uber-conceptual, sounds-good-on-paper, ‘bleeding-edge’ concepts, the conference offers presentations and panel discussions about advanced, yet practical tactics, strategies and shopfloor processes that can be applied now at attendees’ shops,” says Derek Korn, the magazine’s executive editor and conference’s technical director. “These include leveraging additive manufacturing in a shop setting, machine tool monitoring and data collection, cutting tool management, and best practices in areas such as business strategies, workforce development and human resources.”

Gardner Intelligence took the results of all the previous Top Shops surveys, which includes more than 2,000 shops, and used sophisticated modeling techniques to determine what really drives high performance at machine shops. Chief Data Officer Steven Kline, Jr., will present trends spotted over the survey’s nine editions.

The image gallery above, based on Modern Machine Shop magazine’s Modern Equipment Review Spotlight, features a selection of the product releases we have recently published about grinding and abrasive equipment, ranging from heavy-duty superfinishing machines to cylindrical grinding machines to flap discs. More can be found in our Zone dedicated to grinding technology.

Swipe through the gallery for details about each product, and follow the caption links for more information. Products featured in this month’s spotlight come from the following companies:

Although the American machine tool industry is not what it used to be, American engineers continue to design and American workers continued to build metal-cutting equipment. At the Fives Giddings & Lewis plant in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, they’ve been doing so for more than a century — a storied history the company celebrated June 20-22 with an 160^th anniversary open house event.

Although the machine tools retain the Giddings & Lewis (G&L) brand, the company has passed through a series of owners over the years. Given its age, and the fact that French fur trappers were the first Europeans to explore the area in the 17^th century, it is somehow fitting that the plant’s current owner is Fives (pronounced “feeve”), a 200-plus-year-old, Paris-based industrial conglomerate. Beginning in 1859 as a machine shop serving the increasingly industrialized agricultural sector, G&L began producing engine lathes at its current facility in the late 1890s. Today, this plant occupies 145,000 square feet and specializes in the manufacture of large vertical turning lathes (VTLs) and horizontal boring mills.

The complete agenda for the 2019 Additive Manufacturing Conference + Expo (AMC) has been announced. The three day event will take place in Austin, Texas, on August 27-29 and will offer attendees ways to connect with leading suppliers, end-users and researchers of industrial applications for additive manufacturing (AM) technologies.The interactive event includes demonstrations, technical tours, networking and presentations, all held against the backdrop of one of the nation’s most tech forward cities.

“Expanding the show for Austin allows us to dig deeper into all aspects of 3D printing technology for production,” says Dave Necessary, event manager. “Attendees will get to see equipment on the show floor, hear presentations on the latest in industrial 3D printing technology, visit two top notch facilities and experience everything Austin has to offer.”

I’m quite certain everyone reading these words is well aware of the lack of qualified, skilled and productive employees in the workplace. You are dealing with that reality every day. The reasons are myriad. Blame the skills gap, the global economy, our school system or even millennials (I don’t blame them) if you wish. We all have a great many stories involving new hires who can’t seem to come to work every day or can’t seem to run at rate. When they actually do make parts, they don’t meet tolerance. We label these individuals with various negative descriptors. Some we call untrainable, others non-caring, and then there are the ones we simply call lazy. While it’s obvious that these workers have a negative impact on productivity and quality, I’m seeing a more worrisome problem developing in machine shops. It’s that owners like myself, general managers, lead people and frontline supervisors are becoming more jaded, cynical and skeptical toward potential job candidates and new hires. 

Trust me, I get it. The frustration has been building for some time now. Over the last two years, I’ve interviewed and hired more than 30 employees, many of whom showed hope and promise early on, but ultimately didn’t work out. Shop leadership and long-term employees ask me why I don’t just find “better workers,” as though I am somehow avoiding good workers on purpose! I reply with, “We are hiring from the same talent pool as every other shop and doing the best we can.” But are we? So while everyday experiences seem to validate our frustration, our conversations now seem to reinforce it. Talks with our cutting tool salesperson, steel supplier and local machine tool dealer all revolve around the fact that it’s impossible to find “good employees,” and after we share our tales of woe, they relay how they hear the same thing over and over at every shop they visit.